Attention tourists:
Fort Wayne's Repressive
Smoking Ordinance
If you smoke, don't come to Fort Wayne, the City Council and the Mayor see you as an unwanted and unwelcome health hazard to their city, except for your tourist dollars, of course.
Convention leaders:
Why would you want to bring a convention into a city that sticks its nose way too far into the affairs of private citizens? How can your smoking members feel comfortable and relaxed in a city that sees them as but disgusting people? Go somewhere else.
Human behavior experiments:
Fort Wayne is a world test market and has been so for many decades. But the test products now include social experiments, such as the current smoking ban, to condition people to give up their civil rights at the government's discretion.
Click below for the new smoking ordinance:
http://www.kekiongapress.info/CitySmoke.html
From reasonable to outrageous
In 1998, City Council passed their first smoking ordinance, which mandated that restaurants independently ventilate smoking areas-- and many establishments spent $50,000 or more to comply. Now in 2007, the city council says that this is not good enough and that they have wasted their money in compliance with the old ordinance! (Shouldn't the city be sued for their expenses?) Somehow secondhand smoke on other smokers is not tolerable now. Worse still, is that the new ordinance goes into private businesses and tells them that they cannot even have separated and ventilated smoking rooms for their employees!
Leadership or dictatorship?
The only fair way to enact such an ordinance is to let the citizens vote on it themselves, instead of special interest group representatives and stooges, such as the city council and the mayor. Otherwise, it is not democratic but dictatorial behavior.
"The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government--lest it come to dominate our lives and interests."
Patrick Henry
Whenever possible, the people should be allowed to govern themselves.
Civil rights, not smoke, the real issue
Read below how a federal judge caught the EPA fixing the outcome of a secondhand smoke study and how suppressed research shows that children of smokers not only do not have an increased risk of getting cancer, but develop a sort of immunity to it and have less risk of getting cancer than children of nonsmokers. At the very least, the hazards of secondhand smoke have been deliberately overstated for nefarious reasons.
Links:
http://www.kekiongapress.bravehost.com/EPA.html
If you have been fired, disciplined, charged higher insurance rates, discriminated against because of smoking, contact this law firm:
http://www.cmht.com/investigation_smokers.php
*Below lawsuit history:
Posted on Fri, May. 25, 2007
Injunction hearing set for eve of smoking ban
The Journal Gazette
An Allen Superior Court judge set a hearing for 9 a.m. Thursday to decide whether to issue a temporary injunction to halt enforcement of the citywide smoking ban.
An attorney filed a lawsuit against the city and others Wednesday on behalf of nearly 20 Fort Wayne business owners seeking to stop the ban until city officials can clearly explain what they’re supposed to do and how the ordinance will be enforced.
The suit states that the current ordinance is too vague, broad and unclear to understand.
Civil Court Judge Nancy Boyer, who is presiding over the case, set Thursday’s hearing date a day before the ban is set to go into effect. Boyer, a non-smoker, will hear brief arguments from both sides to determine whether to issue a temporary halt to the ban.
Wolcottville attorney Dennis Rorick, who is representing the Fort Wayne business owners, said Thursday that at the hearing he will show how the business owners will be harmed by the ordinance as well as some of the problems they have with the statute.
“All we’re going to do is go in and (say), ‘Look, we have problems with this statute and we need to preserve the status quo because our clients don’t know what to do to keep from being in violation of the ordinance,’ ” he said.
When asked whether the businesses are seeking a clarification or a permanent halt to the ordinance, Rorick said the question is whether the ban will be weakened and eviscerated with all the changes that city officials will have to make to it.
“It seems to me that what they did instead of taking a rifle, they took a shotgun and blasted at everything,” he said. “That’s where overbroad comes in.”
On Thursday, Rorick filed four affidavits from some of the business owners who stated that they do not know whether they are understanding the ordinance correctly and worry that they and their businesses could be “damaged beyond repair” if they are found to be in violation. They also worry that enforcement officers could “arbitrarily” enforce the ordinance and that they are “left to guess” as to what they must do to keep from violating the ordinance.
The City Council voted in January to ban smoking in all workplaces, including bars and restaurants, effective June 1.
Named as defendants in the suit are the city, Mayor Graham Richard, the City Council, Fire Chief Tim Davie, Police Chief Rusty York, the Fort Wayne-Allen County Health Department, Health Commissioner Dr. Deborah McMahan and unidentified city and Allen County governmental agencies.
City Councilman John Crawford, R-at large, and author of the ordinance, said Wednesday that there was no chance the suit could stop the ban from becoming a reality.
A countywide smoking ordinance is also scheduled to take effect June 1. The Allen County commissioners passed an ordinance in November banning smoking in public places except businesses, such as bars, that serve only patrons 21 and older. It forces restaurants to choose between allowing smoking and serving families and children.
Like Fort Wayne, New Haven opted out of the county’s smoking ordinance. New Haven passed its own version this month that gives bars and restaurants the ability to choose whether to allow smoking.
The plaintiffs
The following is a list of businesses and company presidents that filed suit against the city. The information was obtained from state liquor license records. Information was not available about each business involved in the legal action.
•Quad Inc., doing business as The Gin Mill Lounge at 3005 E. State Blvd. President Sheryl Ringenberg.
•Mannies Inc., doing business as Mannie’s Place at 2302 S. Calhoun St. President Ronald Martin.
•JDR Inc., doing business as Peanuts Food Spirits at 5731 St. Joe Road. President Loren Fifer.
•Spirit RGD Inc., doing business as Sports Spirits Bar Grill at 1723 E. Wayne St. President Deborah Grimes.
•Elco Tap Inc., doing business as Elco Tap at 2516 E. Pontiac St. President Mark Coates.
•Uncle Lou Inc., doing business as Uncle Lou’s Steel Mill Tavern at 2123 Taylor St. President Christina Coble.
•Just Par Inc., doing business as Bogey’s Bar Grill at 1567 W. Dupont Road. President Jay Harshbarger.
•Tsuleff Inc., doing business as Northwood Bar Grill at 6035 Stellhorn Road. President Peter Tsuleff.
•5-B’s Inc., doing business as Country Spirits Bar Grill at 11517 Arcola Road. President Michael Goodwin.
•Waynewood Inn Inc., doing business as Waynewood Inn at 8421 Bluffton Road. President Edward Scherschel.
•Rock ‘N’ Horse Inc., doing business as Rock-N-Horse at 9157 Lima Road. President Kathleen Beason.
•Loonie Silly’s Country Bar Inc., doing business as Loonie Silly’s Country Bar at 3706 New Haven Ave. President Lonnie Herrell.
•Tri-State Armored Inc.
•Kinslow Lawn Inc., doing business as Kinslow Lawn Landscaping.
•Only Boys Inc. at 10337 Illinois Road.
•CCC Business Group Inc. at 2123 Taylor St.
•Spectre Development LLC
•Karianne Holder, resident
Suit challenging Fort Wayne smoking ban dismissed
By Dionne Waugh
The Journal Gazette
Attorneys for both sides agreed this morning to dismiss the lawsuit challenging Fort Wayne's smoking ban.
According to court documents, the attorney representing several Fort Wayne businesses and the city’s attorneys agreed the suit can be dismissed without prejudice, which leaves open the possibility it can be filed again.
An attorney sued the city and others May 23 on behalf of nearly 20 Fort Wayne business owners, seeking to prevent the ban until city officials could clearly explain what they’re supposed to do and how the ordinance will be enforced. The suit stated the ordinance was too vague, broad and unclear to understand.
Attorneys for the city successfully requested the suit be moved to federal court May 30.
On June 5, Fort Wayne City Council amended the ordinance and clarified some aspects to address some of the business owners’ concerns.
The city’s smoking ordinance, which went into effect June 1, bans smoking in any public place including bars, bowling alleys and private clubs, but exempts some hotel and nursing-home rooms and tobacco shops.
A less-restrictive smoking ban for unincorporated Allen County went into effect June 1, banning smoking in public places except businesses, such as bars, that serve only patrons 21 and older.
... AND THEY CALL THIS SCIENCE!
Information and Contacts About us
Sections
Straightening up Eaters Straightening up Drinkers Outcasting Smellers The Theatre of the Absurd The Disgusting Smoking bans Bookcase The WHO gang section Let's kill them- for their own good Humor At the service of the pharmaceutical industry
Columnists
Norman Kjono James Leavey Judith Hatton Andy Ludlow Søren Højbjerg Gian Turci
Researchers
John Luik Pierre Lemieux Martha Perske Wanda Hamilton Rosalind Marimont
Archives and Research Materials
News and Articles Archive Past Front Pages of FORCES International
(starting July 3, 2000) Historical Files - The milestones in the tobacco wars Prohibition, then and now Constitutional and Antitrust Violations of the Multistate Tobacco Settlement WHO SCANDAL The CD that says it all on political corruption and frauds on smoking
Special Reports
Pharmaceutical multinationals: buying governments, selling antismoking Big Drug's Nicotine War
Awards
PROLOGUE
May 4 - ...And they call this "science" - Nearly ten years ago FORCES began denouncing the passive smoke fraud. During this time we accumulated and put on line a vast amount of evidence. The crowning of our efforts to date is this new compendium, which does not just explain the Great Fraud in simpler than ever terms, but also makes available ALL the studies ever conducted on passive smoke and lung cancer/cardiovascular disease. All the original studies are downloadable, one by one or all together in zipped files. Statistical significance, authors, financing; it is all there, a quarter century of research on passive smoke — to prove what? Nothing, other that it is impossible to demonstrate that passive smoke is harmful.
The evidence we supply is now complete — and we can support it with epidemiological consulting by professional epidemiologists in any courtroom anywhere in the world. Yet there are still those on our side who question the validity of the scientific approach as the one tool that can really put an end to this war on public smoking with the victory of liberty and truth. Business associations, lawyers, politicians, media persons — even tobacco executives and pro-choice activists are still largely ignorant of this statistical fraud/false representation of (junk) science, and thus question its effectiveness as a legal and political tool. Rather, they bring forward trite and worthless arguments such as local or general economic issues, freedom of personal choice, constitutionality, “cool” lifestyles, endless analyses of motivations and even antismoking psychology.
Hold on! Those are not worthless arguments — have we gone insane? Not at all, but we have to face reality.
In today’s enmeshed social values, it is unarguable that “health” is paramount in society. Whether that health is real or presumed has become utterly irrelevant — perception is all that matters. Thus, as long as the public perceives passive smoke as a public health threat, it will be closed and deaf to any other argument, no matter how important and fundamental, no matter the consequences. It follows that only when the perception of threat is removed by demonstrating the false representation of evidence is it going to be possible to have any other argument considered. Given the endless propaganda against smoking and the ensuing hysteria, almost the only place where it is possible to establish that the dangers of passive smoke are a fraud is in courtrooms. Of all the political/legal/cultural arguments against smoking prohibition and antismoking campaigns, however, the passive smoke fraud is what has been used the least — in fact, wielding the categories above is a stubborn refusal to use the only thing that would succeed.
Why is this? The list of speculations is endless, but one is worth mentioning: those angered by anti-tobacco coercion believe the lies disseminated from the authorities they fear: Somewhere down deep, they believe that smoking is bad, and passive smoking must be bad also — or, at least, the fraud and ensuing prohibition is what it takes "to make them quit" such a "bad habit". So, they refuse to educate themselves using the excuse that "fighting the science is not gonna work", forgetting that it is not science, but junk science. In that way they don’t have to challenge the health authorities and endanger the very structure that oppresses them, but that they believe in nevertheless. On the other hand they don’t like prohibition, thus they keep on fighting (and losing) with the same blunt weapons hoping that one day it will "go away". It will not, unless it is forcefully uprooted at the base, which once again is the junk science.
Of course, antismokers wisely refuse to engage their adversaries on scientific grounds, as they know quite well that they would not stand a chance in a scientific debate, and they make sure that their opponents also believe that the scientific weapon is useless! So, here we have a war unilaterally declared — thus an aggression — where the attacked defend themselves with whine and blunt weapons, keep on missing the targets, and are afraid to win by using the only real weapon they have. How ironic.
HEARTLAND INSTITUTE
Welcome to Heartland's Smoker's Lounge!
Written By: Maureen Martin and Joseph L. Bast
Published In: Smoker's Lounge Issue Suite
Publication Date: April 20, 2007
Publisher: The Heartland Institute
Welcome to the Smoker’s Lounge, the place to go for sound science, economics, and legal commentary on tobacco issues. This “issue suite” cuts through the propaganda and exaggeration of anti-smoking groups by giving you access to the best available research and commentary from scores of independent research organizations, publications, and government sources.
This essay presents an overview of the controversy over tobacco control, with links to documents in HTML and PDF formats available from PolicyBot, the free electronic clearinghouse of free-market research and commentary that also resides on The Heartland Institute’s Web site. You can go directly to the “Smoking” topic in PolicyBot and search for documents without the assistance of this essay by clicking here.
Why Defend Smokers? Everywhere you look, anti-smoking groups are campaigning against smokers. They claim smoking kills one third or even half of all smokers; that secondhand smoke is a major public health problem; that smokers impose enormous costs on the rest of society; and that for all these reasons, taxes on cigarettes should be raised.
There are many reasons to be skeptical about what professional anti-smoking advocates say. They personally profit by exaggerating the health threats of smoking and winning passage of higher taxes and bans on smoking in public places. The anti-smoking movement is hardly a grassroots phenomenon: It is largely funded by taxpayers and a few major foundations with left-liberal agendas.
A growing number of independent policy experts from a wide range of professions and differing political views are speaking out against the anti-smoking campaign. They defend smokers for several reasons:
- Smokers already pay taxes that are too high to be fair, and far above any cost they impose on the rest of society.
- The public health community's campaign to demonize smokers and all forms of tobacco is based on junk science.
- Litigation against the tobacco industry is an example of lawsuit abuse, and has “loaded the gun” for lawsuits against other industries.
- Smoking bans hurt small businesses and violate private property rights.
- The harm caused by smoking can be reduced by educating smokers about their options.
- Punishing smokers “for their own good” is repulsive to the basic libertarian principles that ought to limit the use of government force.
Cigarettes are already the most heavily taxed commodity in the U.S. The federal excise tax is $0.39 a pack and the national average state excise tax is about $0.60 per pack, for a total of $0.99 per pack. In addition, the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) increased the price of a pack of cigarettes by about $0.40 a pack. In a growing number of cities, a pack-a-day smoker pays more in cigarette taxes than he or she pays in state income taxes.
Such high and discriminatory taxes on smokers are unfair. They are also an inefficient and unreliable way to raise funds for government. Excise taxes require regular rate increases to keep pace with inflation, whereas income, sales, and property taxes all rise with inflation or economic growth. Because of their narrow bases, excise taxes are unstable revenue generators. And excise taxes require relatively high rates to raise funds. These rates, in turn, create opportunities for evasion and the transfer of economic activity to states with lower taxes.
Dramatic price hikes and extreme taxes on cigarettes are threatening to create a stampede of tax evasion, black-market transactions, counterfeiting, and even use of lethal violence against convenience store clerks and truck drivers. Tax hikes of $1.00 a pack or more, as have been adopted recently by New York, Cook County, Illinois, and elsewhere threaten to take us to a neoprohibitionist era, with all the crime, expenses, and loss of respect for law enforcement that accompanied Prohibition.
Excise taxes are also regressive. People with low incomes not only pay a higher percentage of their incomes on cigarette taxes than do wealthier people, they even pay more in absolute terms. Persons earning less than $10,000 paid an average of $81 a year in tobacco taxes, versus $49 for those who make $50,000 or more. This was before recent massive tax hikes!
Are high taxes on cigarettes justified by the social costs smokers impose on the rest of society? No.
Attention tourists:
Fort Wayne's Repressive
Smoking Ordinance
If you smoke, don't come to Fort Wayne, the City Council and the Mayor see you as an unwanted and unwelcome health hazard to their city, except for your tourist dollars, of course.
Convention leaders:
Why would you want to bring a convention into a city that sticks its nose way too far into the affairs of private citizens? How can your smoking members feel comfortable and relaxed in a city that sees them as but disgusting people? Go somewhere else.
Human behavior experiments:
Fort Wayne is a world test market and has been so for many decades. But the test products now include social experiments, such as the current smoking ban, to condition people to give up their civil rights at the government's discretion.
Click below for the new smoking ordinance:
http://www.kekiongapress.info/CitySmoke.html
From reasonable to outrageous
In 1998, City Council passed their first smoking ordinance, which mandated that restaurants independently ventilate smoking areas-- and many establishments spent $50,000 or more to comply. Now in 2007, the city council says that this is not good enough and that they have wasted their money in compliance with the old ordinance! (Shouldn't the city be sued for their expenses?) Somehow secondhand smoke on other smokers is not tolerable now. Worse still, is that the new ordinance goes into private businesses and tells them that they cannot even have separated and ventilated smoking rooms for their employees!
Leadership or dictatorship?
The only fair way to enact such an ordinance is to let the citizens vote on it themselves, instead of special interest group representatives and stooges, such as the city council and the mayor. Otherwise, it is not democratic but dictatorial behavior.
"The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government--lest it come to dominate our lives and interests."
Patrick Henry
Whenever possible, the people should be allowed to govern themselves.
Civil rights, not smoke, the real issue
Read below how a federal judge caught the EPA fixing the outcome of a secondhand smoke study and how suppressed research shows that children of smokers not only do not have an increased risk of getting cancer, but develop a sort of immunity to it and have less risk of getting cancer than children of nonsmokers. At the very least, the hazards of secondhand smoke have been deliberately overstated for nefarious reasons.
Links:
http://www.kekiongapress.bravehost.com/EPA.html
If you have been fired, disciplined, charged higher insurance rates, discriminated against because of smoking, contact this law firm:
http://www.cmht.com/investigation_smokers.php
*Below lawsuit history:
An Allen Superior Court judge set a hearing for 9 a.m. Thursday to decide whether to issue a temporary injunction to halt enforcement of the citywide smoking ban. An attorney filed a lawsuit against the city and others Wednesday on behalf of nearly 20 Fort Wayne business owners seeking to stop the ban until city officials can clearly explain what they’re supposed to do and how the ordinance will be enforced. The suit states that the current ordinance is too vague, broad and unclear to understand. Civil Court Judge Nancy Boyer, who is presiding over the case, set Thursday’s hearing date a day before the ban is set to go into effect. Boyer, a non-smoker, will hear brief arguments from both sides to determine whether to issue a temporary halt to the ban. Wolcottville attorney Dennis Rorick, who is representing the Fort Wayne business owners, said Thursday that at the hearing he will show how the business owners will be harmed by the ordinance as well as some of the problems they have with the statute. “All we’re going to do is go in and (say), ‘Look, we have problems with this statute and we need to preserve the status quo because our clients don’t know what to do to keep from being in violation of the ordinance,’ ” he said. When asked whether the businesses are seeking a clarification or a permanent halt to the ordinance, Rorick said the question is whether the ban will be weakened and eviscerated with all the changes that city officials will have to make to it. “It seems to me that what they did instead of taking a rifle, they took a shotgun and blasted at everything,” he said. “That’s where overbroad comes in.” On Thursday, Rorick filed four affidavits from some of the business owners who stated that they do not know whether they are understanding the ordinance correctly and worry that they and their businesses could be “damaged beyond repair” if they are found to be in violation. They also worry that enforcement officers could “arbitrarily” enforce the ordinance and that they are “left to guess” as to what they must do to keep from violating the ordinance. The City Council voted in January to ban smoking in all workplaces, including bars and restaurants, effective June 1. Named as defendants in the suit are the city, Mayor Graham Richard, the City Council, Fire Chief Tim Davie, Police Chief Rusty York, the Fort Wayne-Allen County Health Department, Health Commissioner Dr. Deborah McMahan and unidentified city and Allen County governmental agencies. City Councilman John Crawford, R-at large, and author of the ordinance, said Wednesday that there was no chance the suit could stop the ban from becoming a reality. A countywide smoking ordinance is also scheduled to take effect June 1. The Allen County commissioners passed an ordinance in November banning smoking in public places except businesses, such as bars, that serve only patrons 21 and older. It forces restaurants to choose between allowing smoking and serving families and children. Like Fort Wayne, New Haven opted out of the county’s smoking ordinance. New Haven passed its own version this month that gives bars and restaurants the ability to choose whether to allow smoking. The following is a list of businesses and company presidents that filed suit against the city. The information was obtained from state liquor license records. Information was not available about each business involved in the legal action. •Quad Inc., doing business as The Gin Mill Lounge at 3005 E. State Blvd. President Sheryl Ringenberg. •Mannies Inc., doing business as Mannie’s Place at 2302 S. Calhoun St. President Ronald Martin. •JDR Inc., doing business as Peanuts Food Spirits at 5731 St. Joe Road. President Loren Fifer. •Spirit RGD Inc., doing business as Sports Spirits Bar Grill at 1723 E. Wayne St. President Deborah Grimes. •Elco Tap Inc., doing business as Elco Tap at 2516 E. Pontiac St. President Mark Coates. •Uncle Lou Inc., doing business as Uncle Lou’s Steel Mill Tavern at 2123 Taylor St. President Christina Coble. •Just Par Inc., doing business as Bogey’s Bar Grill at 1567 W. Dupont Road. President Jay Harshbarger. •Tsuleff Inc., doing business as Northwood Bar Grill at 6035 Stellhorn Road. President Peter Tsuleff. •5-B’s Inc., doing business as Country Spirits Bar Grill at 11517 Arcola Road. President Michael Goodwin. •Waynewood Inn Inc., doing business as Waynewood Inn at 8421 Bluffton Road. President Edward Scherschel. •Rock ‘N’ Horse Inc., doing business as Rock-N-Horse at 9157 Lima Road. President Kathleen Beason. •Loonie Silly’s Country Bar Inc., doing business as Loonie Silly’s Country Bar at 3706 New Haven Ave. President Lonnie Herrell. •Tri-State Armored Inc. •Kinslow Lawn Inc., doing business as Kinslow Lawn Landscaping. •Only Boys Inc. at 10337 Illinois Road. •CCC Business Group Inc. at 2123 Taylor St. •Spectre Development LLC •Karianne Holder, resident
Posted on Fri, May. 25, 2007
Injunction hearing set for eve of smoking ban
The Journal Gazette
Suit challenging Fort Wayne smoking ban dismissed
By Dionne Waugh
The Journal Gazette
Attorneys for both sides agreed this morning to dismiss the lawsuit challenging Fort Wayne's smoking ban.
According to court documents, the attorney representing several Fort Wayne businesses and the city’s attorneys agreed the suit can be dismissed without prejudice, which leaves open the possibility it can be filed again.
An attorney sued the city and others May 23 on behalf of nearly 20 Fort Wayne business owners, seeking to prevent the ban until city officials could clearly explain what they’re supposed to do and how the ordinance will be enforced. The suit stated the ordinance was too vague, broad and unclear to understand.
Attorneys for the city successfully requested the suit be moved to federal court May 30.
On June 5, Fort Wayne City Council amended the ordinance and clarified some aspects to address some of the business owners’ concerns.
The city’s smoking ordinance, which went into effect June 1, bans smoking in any public place including bars, bowling alleys and private clubs, but exempts some hotel and nursing-home rooms and tobacco shops.
A less-restrictive smoking ban for unincorporated Allen County went into effect June 1, banning smoking in public places except businesses, such as bars, that serve only patrons 21 and older.
... AND THEY CALL THIS SCIENCE! Sections Columnists Researchers Archives and Research Materials Special Reports Awards PROLOGUE May 4 - ...And they call this "science" - Nearly ten years ago FORCES began denouncing the passive smoke fraud. During this time we accumulated and put on line a vast amount of evidence. The crowning of our efforts to date is this new compendium, which does not just explain the Great Fraud in simpler than ever terms, but also makes available ALL the studies ever conducted on passive smoke and lung cancer/cardiovascular disease. All the original studies are downloadable, one by one or all together in zipped files. Statistical significance, authors, financing; it is all there, a quarter century of research on passive smoke — to prove what? Nothing, other that it is impossible to demonstrate that passive smoke is harmful. The evidence we supply is now complete — and we can support it with epidemiological consulting by professional epidemiologists in any courtroom anywhere in the world. Yet there are still those on our side who question the validity of the scientific approach as the one tool that can really put an end to this war on public smoking with the victory of liberty and truth. Business associations, lawyers, politicians, media persons — even tobacco executives and pro-choice activists are still largely ignorant of this statistical fraud/false representation of (junk) science, and thus question its effectiveness as a legal and political tool. Rather, they bring forward trite and worthless arguments such as local or general economic issues, freedom of personal choice, constitutionality, “cool” lifestyles, endless analyses of motivations and even antismoking psychology. Hold on! Those are not worthless arguments — have we gone insane? Not at all, but we have to face reality. In today’s enmeshed social values, it is unarguable that “health” is paramount in society. Whether that health is real or presumed has become utterly irrelevant — perception is all that matters. Thus, as long as the public perceives passive smoke as a public health threat, it will be closed and deaf to any other argument, no matter how important and fundamental, no matter the consequences. It follows that only when the perception of threat is removed by demonstrating the false representation of evidence is it going to be possible to have any other argument considered. Given the endless propaganda against smoking and the ensuing hysteria, almost the only place where it is possible to establish that the dangers of passive smoke are a fraud is in courtrooms. Of all the political/legal/cultural arguments against smoking prohibition and antismoking campaigns, however, the passive smoke fraud is what has been used the least — in fact, wielding the categories above is a stubborn refusal to use the only thing that would succeed. Why is this? The list of speculations is endless, but one is worth mentioning: those angered by anti-tobacco coercion believe the lies disseminated from the authorities they fear: Somewhere down deep, they believe that smoking is bad, and passive smoking must be bad also — or, at least, the fraud and ensuing prohibition is what it takes "to make them quit" such a "bad habit". So, they refuse to educate themselves using the excuse that "fighting the science is not gonna work", forgetting that it is not science, but junk science. In that way they don’t have to challenge the health authorities and endanger the very structure that oppresses them, but that they believe in nevertheless. On the other hand they don’t like prohibition, thus they keep on fighting (and losing) with the same blunt weapons hoping that one day it will "go away". It will not, unless it is forcefully uprooted at the base, which once again is the junk science. Of course, antismokers wisely refuse to engage their adversaries on scientific grounds, as they know quite well that they would not stand a chance in a scientific debate, and they make sure that their opponents also believe that the scientific weapon is useless! So, here we have a war unilaterally declared — thus an aggression — where the attacked defend themselves with whine and blunt weapons, keep on missing the targets, and are afraid to win by using the only real weapon they have. How ironic. Welcome to Heartland's Smoker's Lounge! Welcome to the Smoker’s Lounge, the place to go for sound science, economics, and legal commentary on tobacco issues. This “issue suite” cuts through the propaganda and exaggeration of anti-smoking groups by giving you access to the best available research and commentary from scores of independent research organizations, publications, and government sources. This essay presents an overview of the controversy over tobacco control, with links to documents in HTML and PDF formats available from PolicyBot, the free electronic clearinghouse of free-market research and commentary that also resides on The Heartland Institute’s Web site. You can go directly to the “Smoking” topic in PolicyBot and search for documents without the assistance of this essay by clicking here. Everywhere you look, anti-smoking groups are campaigning against smokers. They claim smoking kills one third or even half of all smokers; that secondhand smoke is a major public health problem; that smokers impose enormous costs on the rest of society; and that for all these reasons, taxes on cigarettes should be raised. There are many reasons to be skeptical about what professional anti-smoking advocates say. They personally profit by exaggerating the health threats of smoking and winning passage of higher taxes and bans on smoking in public places. The anti-smoking movement is hardly a grassroots phenomenon: It is largely funded by taxpayers and a few major foundations with left-liberal agendas. A growing number of independent policy experts from a wide range of professions and differing political views are speaking out against the anti-smoking campaign. They defend smokers for several reasons: Cigarettes are already the most heavily taxed commodity in the U.S. The federal excise tax is $0.39 a pack and the national average state excise tax is about $0.60 per pack, for a total of $0.99 per pack. In addition, the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) increased the price of a pack of cigarettes by about $0.40 a pack. In a growing number of cities, a pack-a-day smoker pays more in cigarette taxes than he or she pays in state income taxes. Such high and discriminatory taxes on smokers are unfair. They are also an inefficient and unreliable way to raise funds for government. Excise taxes require regular rate increases to keep pace with inflation, whereas income, sales, and property taxes all rise with inflation or economic growth. Because of their narrow bases, excise taxes are unstable revenue generators. And excise taxes require relatively high rates to raise funds. These rates, in turn, create opportunities for evasion and the transfer of economic activity to states with lower taxes. Dramatic price hikes and extreme taxes on cigarettes are threatening to create a stampede of tax evasion, black-market transactions, counterfeiting, and even use of lethal violence against convenience store clerks and truck drivers. Tax hikes of $1.00 a pack or more, as have been adopted recently by New York, Cook County, Illinois, and elsewhere threaten to take us to a neoprohibitionist era, with all the crime, expenses, and loss of respect for law enforcement that accompanied Prohibition. Excise taxes are also regressive. People with low incomes not only pay a higher percentage of their incomes on cigarette taxes than do wealthier people, they even pay more in absolute terms. Persons earning less than $10,000 paid an average of $81 a year in tobacco taxes, versus $49 for those who make $50,000 or more. This was before recent massive tax hikes! Are high taxes on cigarettes justified by the social costs smokers impose on the rest of society? No.
About us
Straightening up Eaters Straightening up Drinkers Outcasting Smellers The Theatre of the Absurd The Disgusting Smoking bans Bookcase The WHO gang section Let's kill them- for their own good Humor At the service of the pharmaceutical industry
Norman Kjono James Leavey Judith Hatton Andy Ludlow Søren Højbjerg Gian Turci
John Luik Pierre Lemieux Martha Perske Wanda Hamilton Rosalind Marimont
News and Articles Archive Past Front Pages of FORCES International
(starting July 3, 2000) Historical Files - The milestones in the tobacco wars Prohibition, then and now Constitutional and Antitrust Violations of the Multistate Tobacco Settlement WHO SCANDAL The CD that says it all on political corruption and frauds on smoking
Pharmaceutical multinationals: buying governments, selling antismoking Big Drug's Nicotine War
Published In: Smoker's Lounge Issue Suite
Publication Date: April 20, 2007
Publisher: The Heartland Institute
